


Remix

by Darkicedragon, dogmatix



Category: Assassin's Creed, Prototype (Video Game)
Genre: Bill Miles is annoying, Bleeding Effect, Desmond is not in the best shape, Gen, Protocreed AU to a Protocreed fic, and Alex swears a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkicedragon/pseuds/Darkicedragon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex wakes up without Desmond, stranded in a parallel reality where Gentek never existed, but Dr. Alex Mercer does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remix

**Author's Note:**

> AU to Darkicedragon's Virus in the Machine fic, where Desmond accidentally infects Desmond with Blacklight after P1. Alex and Desmond co-habit in Desmond's body while Alex helps Desmond get his memories sorted.  
> http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8145482/1/Virus-in-the-Machine

"Desmond. Desmond _wait_ ," Alex called out, weaving through the jostling mass of humanity.  The only response was a surge in Desmond's speed as the Assassin pulled further ahead.

The Manhattanites around Alex didn't turn a hair at his shouting, keeping their heads down in a futile attempt to avoid the misting, miserable grey drizzle drifting down on them.  Alex throttled back on the urge to bring out his claws and _make_ them give way, or run up the side of a building to get the jump on Desmond, who was even now turning a corner, disappearing behind metal piping and wet plastic sheets.

Bringing more of his weight into play, Alex forged ahead, turning a deaf ear to the cries of outrage that followed his path as he bulled through the throng. He refused to lose Desmond now.

The white hoodie was gone when Alex rounded the corner. Alex stood, eyes frantically searching the huddled, bustling crowd, flicking across the sea of cars and yellow cabs with their tires shushing over the wet road, assessing the other side of the street and the flow of humanity there.

But no, this was wrong.  Alex flicked his eyes up to the construction scaffolding and half-finished building looming over him.

Something moved, and was gone.  Alex jumped, catching hold of the wet metal bar overhead.  He swung himself up, braced and jumped and caught again, hard on the tail of his quarry.

True, he could have simply run up the side of the building, and it might yet come to that, but for now he was trying to keep a low profile.  Fortunately all that time in the Animus had given him a good idea of how humans did this without being able to stick to buildings.

Catching hold of the gaping window-frame, Alex hauled himself up into the empty floor of the building.

"Desmond," Alex called, voice tight and harsh, listening to the softly flapping plastic sheets.  At least seven stories up, and muffled by the soft rain, the streets below seemed far away and unimportant. "Desmond."

He sensed the motion more than heard it, dropped under the slash and came up in a defensive stance. "Fucking stop that! I’m not here to hurt-"

"Bastardo," Desmond spat, almost slurring the word, and there was way too much white around the wild eyes that kept twitching off to the side, tracking something that wasn't there.

"You're Bleeding?" Alex asked harshly, stunned.

With an enraged snarl, Desmond came at him again, leading with his blade.  Alex barely managed to deflect the blow, knocking it aside clumsily.

Desmond's arm jackknifed quickly and slammed hard and sharp into his ribs, earning an annoyed grunt from Alex.  Desmond, deep in whatever he was seeing, didn't notice the lack of reaction, but spun again, slashing at Alex's throat.

"Desmond stop, I'm not here to hurt you, damnit!" Alex called, backing up again.

"Ti ammazzo," Desmond snarled as he came at Alex again, eyes wild.

This wasn't working, Alex thought as he deflected again.  That was the least of his worries though.  The one currently topping the list was that Desmond seemed to be Bleeding pretty badly, and it had to have been more than ten seconds by now, going on fifteen, and who knew how long Desmond had been Bleeding before the confrontation started.

Instead of deflecting or dodging the next attack, Alex grabbed Desmond's arm, pivoted and brought Desmond up and over to land with a dust-raising _thud_ on bare concrete.  The breath whooshed out of the stunned Assassin and Alex let him go, backing up a step.  He could have pinned Desmond, but a trapped Assassin was a desperate Assassin, and the last thing he wanted was a panicked, Bleeding Desmond trying something stupid.

It seemed to do the trick - Desmond's gasping and hacking for breath morphed into deep, shuddering breaths as the tension left him all at once.

"Desmond?"

Desmond's hands twitched as he glared up at Alex. "I guess that answers my question," he spat.

 "What question?" Alex frowned, startled by the amount of sheer hate that was registering in Desmond's features.

"Why I was seeing Rodrigo Borgia while I was Bleeding."  Desmond pushed himself up haltingly, obviously trying to get upright again.

"Des-"

The leg-sweep almost took Alex by surprise, but he managed to hop over it.  All that time in the Animus was good for learning to dodge, if nothing else.  It would have hurt Desmond more than him, of course, but he didn't actually want to hurt Desmond.

Although at this rate, Alex was quickly approaching the stage of wanting to _throttle_ the Assassin.

"Desmond, I'm not-"

"Shove it, _Doctor_ Mercer," Desmond sneered, hidden blade at the ready again, "there's no way in hell I'm coming back like a good little test subject-"

"You think I'm _Mercer_?"

Desmond scowled, "The thought had crossed my mind, yeah." But at least there seemed to be a new wariness, Desmond really looking at him now.

"What, you're saying you're not?"

Alex barked a short, derisive laugh. "You think _Doctor_ Alexander J Mercer would be caught dead running around like this?" Alex spread his arms, showing off the layers of drab, concealing clothes, meant to obscure and blend, nothing like the clean-cut expensive clothing the human version had preferred, if the photos were to be believed.

Desmond - his Desmond - would have at least cracked a grin at that, knowing why it was funny.  After all, Mercer was – in a very twisted and odd way – ‘running around dead’ in Alex’s casual street-wear.  This Desmond just studied him dubiously.

Suddenly, Alex felt indescribably weary. "I'm not Mercer. I look like him, but I'm not."  And this wasn't his Desmond.  He'd known something was wrong when he'd woken up in Central Park with a dead silence in his head where Desmond used to be.

His last memory before that was of fighting.  Through some kind of computer wizardry, Dana had tracked down a sister-company of Gentek which specialized in physics rather than genetic engineering, but just as prone to meddle in things that should be left alone.  Apparently some idiot thought he'd invented time travel (which, Alex had eaten enough scientists to be able to say that that was pretty much bullshit, unless he was reading the math all wrong) and was dead set on testing it out.  They'd found the guy and _stopped_ him, permanently. And then they'd gone to destroy the machine before it blew up, and there had been a control panel and something that looked like a miniature black hole, but it all kind of got hazy at that point and the next thing he knew he was waking up in Central Park, which was _not_ where the fight had happened.

He still had the genetic template to shapeshift into Desmond, so the resounding silence in his head was a broken connection rather than, say, having imagined Desmond entirely.  That hadn't been the only strange thing though - the Assassins' original Manhattan safe house was empty, the second one was a florist shop.  That had been bad enough, but it was like even the Infection has never happened. For one thing, Manhattan's skyline was different from what he remembered - taller, older, less ragged.  For another, there was no military presence, and the people were both more numerous and more oblivious than he was used to.  The scars of the Infection on both place and people was simply _absent_.

For a second he'd wondered if it really had been time travel, if he could stop everything from happening - but the date on the newspapers was current, to the day.

He'd still been holding the damp newspaper and trying to process that when he'd seen Desmond walk by on the rainy sidewalk like a miracle.  And the chase had been on.

Alex sighed. "I'm not Mercer, and I'm on your side.  But I do have a.. connection to Mercer.  It's complicated."

"What, like, 'evil twin' complicated?" Desmond asked warily.

Alex snorted. "More like 'alternate reality' complicated."

"Bullshit."

"Aliens creating mankind," Alex ticked off on his fingers, "spelunking in your own ancestors’ memories, ancient mind-controlling artifacts."

Desmond regarded him dubiously. “Well. I. Yeah but, alternate realities?”

Alex shrugged. “It’s not time travel because the date’s still the same, but you only know Dr. Mercer, who you never met as far as I know, and who died long before you met me. Unless there’s an even _weirder_ explanation behind all of this, that’s my best theory so far.”

"Okay, okay, just." Desmond took a deep breath.

He recovered quickly, Alex would give him that.

"Say I do believe you, that you're not 'my' Mercer. How do I know you're not a worse version of him?"

"Define 'worse'," Alex said dryly. You could argue it both ways, really. After all, Alex had literally been created to kill humans - as many of them as quickly as possible, often in the worst ways imaginable.  On the other hand, Mercer had been the one to create him, and then later to release him out of pure petty spite. It sounded like Mercer here hadn’t done that, but only because he was a fucking Templar instead of a Gentek employee, if Alex had to guess.

"You have a point," Desmond said after a long pause, looking almost amused.

"If it helps, I was working with you to fight the Templars."

"You defected?" Desmond asked, his hidden blade lowering an inch.

Alex bared his teeth in something like a smile. "I'm a lot of things, but a Templar, no, I never was one of those."

Alex's head jerked around as he came to attention, senses suddenly on alert.

"What-?"

"Footsteps," Alex bit out as he fell into a fighting stance facing the open maw of the stairwell

Desmond turned to face the stairs as well, not quite shoulder-to-shoulder with Alex, and Alex felt a thrill of both joy at having Desmond by his side again, and fear, because humans were so damn fragile and right now, Desmond was still-

Three figures rose out of the deep shadows, guns drawn, and Alex tensed-

"Hold it right there!"

"Dad!" Desmond called out, lowering his blade.

Alex huffed and tried to adopt an inoffensive stance.

"Step away from Desmond," William Miles ordered, gun trained solidly on Alex.  Rebecca and Shaun bracketed the older Assassin, though their guns weren't quite trained on either Alex or Desmond, probably afraid of injuring Desmond accidentally.

"Dad, he's okay," Desmond frowned, glancing at Alex.

"I don't know what he's been telling you but you can't trust him, Desmond."

"He’s not Dr. Mercer. I know what this looks like but-"

"He's a _Templar_ , Desmond."

"He's not!" Desmond said sharply, hackles now up.

Damn. This could get ugly. And Bill still had his gun trained on Alex, who was less than four feet away from Desmond. "Desmond, it's okay."

"But!"

"No, really, it's fine." Alex looked over at the indignant Assassin and smirked.  "It's a long and really weird story, but guns... don't really work on me."

Desmond gave him a look of deep skepticism, but still backed up a step or two.  "There, I did what you asked and he hasn't attacked me," Desmond said, glaring at his father. "Now for once could you trust that I know what I’m-"

William Miles put a bullet through the center of Alex's forehead.

The report from the gun died away into near silence, interrupted only by the soft sounds of street-level New York several stories below.

"Ouch," Alex said flatly. Goddamnit, he was just never ever going to get along with Bill Miles, was he.

The Assasins stared, dumbfounded, as the hole through Alex's head repaired itself in a flurry of red and black.  It was almost worth it though, for the look of slack shock on Bill Miles’ face.

“Well, that was… unexpected,” Shaun said faintly.

“What- what the hell are you?” Rebecca asked, shocked, her gun ticking up a notch in automatic self-defense.

Desmond hadn't said anything, Alex realized.  Not wanting to be right, he turned to see Desmond looking at him with eyes that were seeing something else altogether. No, no damnit. The Bleeding Effect again? It hadn't even been ten minutes, how bad _was_ it? How close was Desmond to losing it altogether?

Alex hadn't done more than twitch in Desmond's direction when Bill Miles snapped out, "Hold it right there!"

Alex snarled at the older Assassin, " Bullets don't _work_ on me you fucking moron, and if you hit Desmond I swear I will make your regret it ."

"M-Malik?" Desmond said hesitantly, eyes fixing on something only he could see. And oh, Alex could guess exactly which memory Desmond was flashing on now, damnit.

"You _stay away_ from him," Bill said, gun still trained on Alex like it was tied to him.

"I can help him!" Alex snarled.

Desmond's legs started to buckle and Alex caught him as Bill's second bullet ruffled the air behind Alex's head.

Alex thought he heard Shaun, but he really didn't give two fucks right at that moment.

"Desmond, can you hear me?" Alex asked, lowering Desmond carefully to the floor.

Desmond gripped his arm, blinking furiously. "W-wha-"

"Desmond, focus on me.  Desmond."

For a moment Desmond's eyes cleared.  "Mercer?"

Good enough. " Look, I can cure the Bleeding Effect, but there are some pretty significant physical side-effects."  Which was kind of like saying 'and then the bomb dropped' but where the hell did he even start?

Desmond's eyes lost focus and the Assassin said something in Italian, pushing half-heartedly at Alex.

Cold alarm swept over Alex. "How long are his Bleeding episodes lasting?" he demanded, glaring at the other Assassins.

Bill wasn't pointing his gun at Alex anymore, but he didn't exactly look happy, either. "If you think we're going to let you take him-"

“How long!” Alex yelled.

"Yesterday he had one that lasted twenty-six seconds," Rebecca admitted reluctantly.

"Crane!"

"He got away from us a few minutes ago because he was Bleeding," Shaun added unhappily.

Three Bleeding episodes in a few minutes? And that was just the ones they knew about. Alex wavered, torn.  Wait it out? But what if he lost Desmond? Should he knowingly infect Desmond to save his sanity? But what if Desmond... what, hated him for it? Couldn't handle it being Blacklight? 

Maybe it was just the stress from the past few minutes. Maybe Desmond usually had a better handle on the Bleeding Effect. Maybe he'd be fine in a few seconds and Alex could give him a full rundown of the situation and his options.

Or maybe _this_ was the one Desmond wouldn’t be coming back from.

Alex felt cold metal push into him, and looked down to see Desmond's hidden blade buried deep in his stomach. Looked up to see Desmond's bewildered, almost panicked expression.

Alex focused on the hand cradling Desmond's neck and head, and let the outer world fade away.

Let Desmond hate him, if Desmond would be alive to do it.

He felt the flutter of Desmond's pulse under his fingers, and had to grit his teeth, muzzling the instinctive pull to use the bloodstream to spread, to infect, to consume.  Instead he slipped strands of himself in like deadly knives, infecting towards the spinal column, latching onto the spinal discs and nerves within them that carried disorganized, jumbled messages.

Travelling up those, he started to feel something call to him, the sense of _Desmond_ singing to him so familiar that he could almost imagine he was home.

But the presence was brittle, strained, and when Alex sent out a sense of worry for Desmond, and reassurance that he wanted to help, the response was faint enough that Alex couldn't be sure he hadn't imagined it.

Alex let himself submerge in Desmond's mind, and it was like stepping into a raging gale, forcing Alex to hunker down and pull in tightly, anchoring himself against the cyclone of wild memories.

Even at its worst, 'his' Desmond's Bleeding Effect hadn't approached anything like this.

"Desmond!!" Alex sent out desperately, trying to find any trace of Desmond in the mad whirlwind, and he thought there was a faint sense of response, but it wasn't anything as defined as a voice, even a mental one.

What was he _thinking_ , Alex realized. He didn't have _time_ to be messing around like this.

Pulling his determination around himself, Alex set to work.

His mental idea of 'himself' was human, or at least humanoid, but this wasn't anything as defined as a mental landscape where he had shape and form, like the Animus loading space.  There was only the constant confusion of agitated memories, crashing into him and trying to submerge him in a cold desert night or the smell of Templar blood or the feel of burning muscles as he launched himself from one roof to the next.

And so Alex took the memories as they collided with him, not trying to order them, as he'd been able to do with 'his' Desmond, but only grouping them inside himself. He marked one area as Altair's memories, one as Ezio's, one as Connor's, and, when he pulled in a memory that he realized was _Desmond's_ , one area as Desmond's.

The surprises just kept coming though. A memory that he almost shoved into the Ezio area had a part to it that was Desmond's, Alex realized with unhappy surprise.  There wasn't any time to do much about it right then, so Alex could only store the mixed memories in their own area.

 All of which strained even his ability to process and maintain active memory areas.

It felt like he'd eaten several people at once and was trying to access all their memories simultaneously, but he refused to give up. He _had_ to get Desmond's memories under control

And gradually the mad whirl of memories tapered off.  There was still a chaotic jumble of memories shivering all around him, but the sense of 'Desmond' was slowly coalescing around him.

"Desmond, can you hear me?" Alex sent out, pausing in his rough sorting of the memories.

"Des-  mond?  Desmond is-  me?"

"Yes!" Alex pounced on the sense of identity and spread protective barriers around it.

"(what- ) What's going on?"

"Do you remember the Assassins, the Animus?"

"Y-yes?"

There wasn't nearly enough certainty in that statement for Alex to be happy, but it was something at least. "You're suffering from the Bleeding Effect, where your memories get jumbled. I'm helping with that."

Desmond's sense of identity felt almost.. moth-eaten was the closest analogy Alex could think of.

"I, I know you." Desmond suddenly said, startled. "Mercer. Mercer!?"

"No!" Alex sent out. He had to nip that one in the bud before Desmond panicked. "No, I’m not Mercer.  I'm here to help you. I know I sound like Mercer, but I'm not. Think back just a minute. Do you remember being in the empty building in Manhattan? I chased you there."

"Yyyyeeah? That, ah, doesn't really tell me you're not Mercer though."

Alex huffed. "Guess that's true. Do you remember what we talked about?"

There was a moment of silence that Alex used to pull in and sort another grab full of memories.

"Alternate realities?" Desmond finally piped up, this time with disbelief rather than uncertainty. "And you expect- wait. You're in my head!"

"Took you long enough," Alex said with a mental smirk

"What are you doing in my head?!"

"What I always do in your head, genius."

"(…try to take over the world?)"

Alex stopped. "What? No! 'Take over the world'? Where'd _that_ come from?"

"I- I didn't say anything!" Desmond thought with a half-defensive, half-alarmed feeling. "I was just thinking-  (of that cartoon with the mice - how did he know what I was thinking-?)"

Oh. Oohhhhh. Alex suddenly realized what it was. "Like you said, I'm in your head. I can hear what you think. There's a way to share only surface thoughts, but you haven't picked that up yet.  My Desmond and I had to figure it out too."

"Oh. (crap he can hear what I'm thinking?)"

"Anyway," Alex ignored the unintended communications, "No, what I do in your head is sort out your memories so that you don't get swamped by the Bleeding Effect. You'll be able to do it yourself after a while. Although you might not want to hurry that up." Alex concluded guiltily.

"Why not? (why wouldn't I want to control the bleeding effect?)"

"It has to do with how I’m in your head," Alex admitted, pushing away the urge to prevaricate.  "I'm not human. I'm in your head because I'm physically _in your head_."

Alex braced himself against the wave of shock and cold fear and _'thing-in-my-head/monster/not-human/oh-god-it's-inside-me_ ' that rolled of Desmond.

"You can think of me as a virus," Alex forged on, "I can see into the minds and memories of what I infect.  I had to infect part of you to get at the memories. I.  I'm sorry."

Alex gave Desmond time to process, sorting memories in the silence. Most of the Desmond memories were from childhood and his bartending days. Older memories that didn’t see a lot of activity, Alex surmised.

"There's more." Desmond said into the silence. "(how do I know that?)"

"Yes, there is. We're really not very good at hiding things from each other," Alex admitted. "When I said I infected you. I can't reverse that infection. And every time I organize your memories, that infection is active. If it spreads far enough, you will be able to organize your own memories without my help, but that would be a sign that the infection is pretty widespread."

"....and?"

"And," Alex said reluctantly, "infecting 'my' Desmond wasn't his choice, either. That one was actually a bit of an accident all around, but. I guess that's not important." He really was getting off topic, but he really didn't want to get to the next bit. He owed it to Desmond though.

"In my reality, Mercer wasn't a Templar. He worked for a genetic engineering company, and he created biological terror weapons. Mercer refined something that was already pretty bad to make me.  He designed me for the sole purpose of killing humans."

"That... sounds pretty bad," Desmond said faintly, shock rolling off him.

"My biology is set up to-  Damnit. Basically, I eat humans. I infect and replicate, until my prey IS me."

"(i'm dead. i'm dead i'm going to die he's going to eat me fuck fuck i'm dead)"

Alex stopped sorting memories for a second. "Desmond I'm _not_ going to eat you. I'm not here to hurt you I swear it."

"(he can hear me i can't escape i-) How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Because you can sense it, if you're paying attention. Besides it takes me less than three seconds to eat someone. That you're not dead yet is a really good indication."

There was a moment of silence as Alex radiated his intentions for all he was worth.

"O-kay," came Desmond's shaky answer, "but I am still.. infected?"

Damn this was hard.  Even the first time around hadn't been this bad - at least then they'd been finding out a lot of this stuff together.  "Yeah.”

“And there’s no way to stop it so… I’ll just keep getting more and more infected until I stop existing? (just fade away maybe that’s not the worst way to die I guess)”

“No!” Damn, he wasn’t explaining this well. Not like he had a lot of practice though. “There's a way to infect you that means you won't be.. consumed, so much as... changed.  You'll become like me. Complete with dietary habits."

There was a beat of confusion and silence as Desmond worked out what he meant.  Revulsion, alarm, and fear flashed through Desmond and shoved against Alex. "No!"

"I'm sorry. I have to go."

"Go? Now!? No, you can't just- (leave! i'm turning into a monster i'm going to be alone please no)”

"I didn't mean _leave_ leave, I'll be right here. But your memories are sorted and the longer I stay the faster the infection spreads. I'm just breaking the physical connection."

"O-oh."

Alex finished 'shelving' the last of Connor's memories and Desmond's early memories. Muddled memories that were purely from Desmond's ancestors had their own 'book' that was as 'locked' as Alex could make it. He'd teased out Desmond's memories from the muddled ones, but sorting _all_ the muddled memories would take up more time than Alex really wanted to spend on it right now.

"I'll be right there when you wake up. Don't worry if you're stabbing me, blades don't work any better than bullets."

"What?!"

Alex pulled back from the connection and opened his eyes.

Desmond's eyes blinked open. Awake and lucid and alarmed. "Wha-"

"Hey," Alex smirked, helping Desmond to sit up.  He felt miniature tendrils writhe into place under his palm where it still rested on Desmond’s neck as he ordered the Blacklight virus into dormancy and broke the link between him and Desmond.   To the naked eye, the skin on Desmond’s neck would look perfectly human.

Desmond looked down to where his blade was still buried in Alex’s stomach. “Oh, oh fuck-!”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Alex said, gripping Desmond’s arm and drawing it back, letting the metal slip out of him. Red and black tendrils twitched for a moment, repairing shirt and skin. “See, good as new.” 

“What are you?” a hard voice asked. Alex looked up in annoyance at Bill Miles.

“None of your fucking business.”

“You did something to Desmond, I’d say that makes it my business.”

Alex helped Desmond get his feet under him and ignored the glaring William Miles.

“Answer me. What did you do to Desmond?”

Alex throttled back the urge to plant his fist into Bill’s face. “What I did was to help Desmond with the Bleeding Effect. Anything else is Desmond’s business. Now would you give him some fucking room?”

“Like you are?” Bill asked snidely, and Alex realized that he and Desmond were still turned half to each other, Alex’s hand on Desmond’s shoulder and Desmond holding onto Alex’s arm.

“Ah.  Sorry?” Alex half-asked Desmond.  He was so used to being _part_ of Desmond that the concept of ‘personal space’ wasn’t even a factor for him.

Desmond surprised him though. “No, that’s okay,” Desmond said, tightening his grip fractionally.

“Well, lovely though this is, we’re pushing our time limit, and we really should be getting back,” Shaun interrupted.

Desmond nodded. “Yeah-“

“We are not taking this thing back to our safe house,” Bill said, expression hard and unyielding.

“Would you stop!” Desmond snapped. “For the first time in _months_ I can string two thoughts together without losing track of who I am.  He didn’t have to help me, but he did.  He could probably kill us all, but he hasn’t.  I am willing to give him the fucking benefit of the doubt!”

“It’s not even human-!”

“I don’t care!”

“It’s not your decision to make!”

About one second away from exploding, Desmond stopped, visibly reining in his temper. He stared at his father, neither Assassin willing to bend.

“You apparently need my genetic memory for the Animus, unless you’d like to hop in and give it a whirl?” Desmond asked acidly. “No? Then that gives me a say in this. Am I right?”

“Taking it back to the safehouse endangers not just you but everyone else. What we’re doing is too important-“

“No, enough.  You want my help, he comes with me,” Desmond laid out his ultimatum.

Bill stared back silently, then his eyes flicked over to Alex. “How do you know it’s not influencing your thoughts?”

“What?” Desmond asked, startled.

“You only met it a few minutes ago. Yet here you are, defending something that’s not even human, that looks like Alex Mercer, who would give anything to have you back under Templar control. You said yourself it affected your mind. How _much_ did it affect your mind? Do you really know?”

Alex could feel faint echoes of panicked fear vibrating along the nascent mental link. As much as he wanted to interfere, it was obvious that now was probably the worst possible time to do just that, so he forced himself to stay still and silent.

After a few seconds the mental echoes from Desmond died down, and the young Assassin squared his shoulders.  “I am going back to the safe house, and he’s coming with me. Anyone else who wants to come is welcome.”

Giving Bill Miles one last glare, Desmond turned and left the same way he’d come, out onto the scaffolding, Alex close on his heels.

The cold air and the damp drizzle were like a different world, though Desmond had no apparent trouble with the wet pipes as he swung from one to the other, surefooted and deliberate.  On the ground once more, Desmond stood looking out at the flow of humanity from within the skeleton of metal pipes while Alex thumped down onto the pavement next to him.

Desmond huffed, somewhere between hysteric laughter and confusion. “So, what my dad said about, about you controlling my thoughts…”

“Not that I know of. Not.. deliberately.”

Desmond looked at Alex askance. “’Not deliberately?’ You couldn’t be a bit more reassuring?”

“Look, it’s not like there’s a fuckton of research on me. I’m a goddamn science experiment gone horribly wrong.  I don’t know how I do half of what I do – I just make shit up as I go.  I’ve only ever infected one other person to the extent I’m infecting you, and that was an _accident_.”

Desmond stared at Alex in surprise, obviously taken aback.

“So I’d like to tell you that I’m not influencing you. I don’t _think_ I am, and not fucking deliberately! But I can’t tell you for sure that I’m not, because I don’t fucking know.”

“Didn’t you ever talk about it with the, uh, the other Desmond?”

“No. Never came up.” Alex stuffed his hands in his pockets, missing home with a sharp, empty pain under his pretend-ribs.  Wanting distraction, Alex eyed the mass of humanity moving blindly past on the outside of the scaffolding.

“It _never came up_?” Desmond asked in disbelief.

“No. Look, the most I knew was that I could communicate with Desmond, and keep his memories in order. I suppose I _could_ mess up your head if I wanted to, but why the hell would I? You’re – he was – the only person I really… connected to, outside of Dana.” Alex frowned. “I guess what I mean is, I’m _me_. That’s pretty much the only fucking thing I have. That… It means something. Memories influence you, sure, but there’s memories and then there’s _you_. I wouldn’t just… y’know?”

“Very eloquent, there,” Desmond said, sounding at least a bit more at ease.

“Oh shut up,” Alex grumbled, “it’s not like I spend a lot of time thinking about this.”

“Would I know if you were messing with my head?” Desmond asked, almost contemplative now. “Is there any way to stop it if I did?”

“Hell if I know,” Alex admitted, then thought for a moment, “As for stopping it… maybe if you were like me. There was- well, long story short, something like me had a hivemind, and they could never control me through it.  I think right now you’re probably the most vulnerable – infected enough that I have access to your head, not infected enough to fight back.”

“You don’t sugarcoat things, do you.”

Alex looked away from the milling humanity on the sidewalk. Desmond face was pale, drawn, and his shoulders were hunched.

“The truth sucks,” Alex said. “But I don’t think you’d want me lying, either.”

Desmond ran a hand over his face. “No, you’re right.”

“Look, I know you don’t know me, and this might not mean much to you, but I promise, I’m not here to hurt you, or control you.”

Desmond gave him a long searching look. Alex fought the alien urge to fidget. Finally, Desmond nodded. “Okay.” Desmond huffed. “I guess it’s too late to back out anyway, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex admitted, feeling guilty, but at the same time not sorry.

“You know, I have so many questions for you,” Desmond admitted, one hand rubbing his neck under the hoodie that he’d pulled up over his head. “I don’t think I’m even taking all this in. It’s.. a bit much, all at once.”

“You’re doing fine,” Alex said gruffly, wanting to reach out to Desmond but knowing it was too soon.

“I don’t even know what to call you,” Desmond realized.

“Alex.”

“…’Alex.’” Desmond eyed him with disbelief.

Alex grimaced. “I know, I know. It’s… complicated.”

“Alternate reality complicated?”

“Evil twin complicated. Sort of.” Alex admitted.

Desmond huffed a laugh. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“Whenever you want, I’ll tell you the whole thing from the start and then you can ask as many questions as you want.”

“Long story, huh?”

Alex snorted. “You could say that, yeah.”

“You said you helped ‘me’, back in the, uh, other dimension. And now you’re helping me here. Is there anything we can do for you?”

Going home was probably out of the question, but there was one thing this world had that his own didn’t.  “Yeah. Actually there is. Let me help you kill Mercer,” Alex grinned, all teeth. “I owe him one.”


End file.
